


Leave A Light On

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Teenage Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-27
Updated: 2011-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean has a shotgun and knows how to use it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave A Light On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kellifer_fic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellifer_fic/gifts).



> For the Fall Fandom Free For All (2011).

Someone’s waiting on the front porch when Duncan pulls into the driveway. The butterflies which were pleasantly fluttering around Sam’s stomach a moment ago suddenly develop lead wing syndrome and drop heavily, bringing the rest of his stomach with them. He hunches lower in the passenger seat, cheeks already burning with nervous embarrassment.

There are no lights on their street ( _all the better for Sam’s date to drop him off without getting a good look at the shithole he’s living in_ ), and the porch is more shadowed than it has any right to be in the suburbs, even with the moon hidden behind a thin coating of clouds. Not the whole porch, if Sam wants to be truthful: just the corner taken up with a broad-shouldered, threatening figure. And of course he picked the perch for just that reason, although if he wanted to remain out of sight, he should have tilted his body more toward the house.

On second thought, Sam realizes glumly, if the figure on the porch didn’t want to be seen, he wouldn’t have been. Whoever it is, Dad or Dean, he’d have the skill to keep out of sight if he wanted to.

Which means this is going to be a _thing_.

Sam chews his lower lip anxiously as the headlights of Duncan’s old Toyota splash across the porch, but the shadow moves and Sam doesn’t catch any more definition than a leather-clad broad shoulder. It doesn’t get him any closer to knowing which family member is waiting up there for him, and he can’t decide who he’d rather face.

On the one hand, Dean already knows about Sam’s preferences, and Dean has made it clear that he doesn’t give a shit.

On the other hand, Dean has also glued Sam’s hand to the bathroom door knob for no other reason than being bored. Also, Dean told him to stay in tonight. He made Sam promise he wouldn’t go anywhere before heading out to hustle some pool himself. Dean can be worse than Dad about breaking curfew.

But Dad doesn’t know. And Sam really, really doesn’t want him to find out like this. He’s too afraid of what Dad might do.

“So,” Duncan says as he puts the car in park and lifts one arm up on the back of the seat. “I had a great time tonight.”

Sam’s certain he won’t manage to respond, but somehow his tongue comes unstuck from the roof of his mouth and he mumbles, “Yeah. Me too.”

“We could do this again,” Duncan adds, moving his fingers close enough to brush the fringe of Sam’s hair.

Despite Sam’s heightened awareness of his watcher on the porch, his skin warms at the contact. He still can’t quite believe Duncan asked him out in the first place. The dude is hot, popular despite being loud and proud, and a really good kisser. And he isn’t after Sam in some lame attempt to get himself a pocket nerd, because he’s ten times as smart as Sam will ever be—he breezed through the AP Calc homework on their study date in about three minutes and then spent the next thirty explaining Cauchy’s integral formula in enthusiastic detail.

They’re supposed to be here for another month at the least, and Sam was looking forward to a whole slew of study dates—more, maybe—and now he’s moments away from having his hard-won attempts to fit in blow up in his face.

It’s the inevitability of disaster that gives him the courage not to back away when Duncan leans in for a kiss. Sam was a little frozen the first time Duncan made a move, but he’s had over an hour’s worth of practice tonight, and he puts all of his newly acquired skills to work. He’s sure that Dad or Dean—whoever—can see him perfectly well from the porch, and when he lifts his hand to cup the side of Duncan’s face, he makes sure his middle finger is flying a defiant flag.

Duncan kisses him for a few minutes, one hand in Sam’s hair and the other pushing up higher on Sam’s thigh. It’s almost enough to make Sam forget what’s waiting outside the car, but there’s a difference between taking what he can while offering his family a private little “fuck you”, and going past first base with his father or brother looking on. Sam breaks the kiss, dropping his hand from Duncan’s face to push his hand back down.

“Yeah,” Duncan says, licking his lips as he moves back to his own side of the car. “Sorry about that. I just, uh, you know how hot you are, right?”

Privately, Sam thinks that Duncan would drop him in a hot second if he caught sight of Dean—all the girls Sam tried dating before certainly did—but he keeps his mouth shut on the subject. “Thanks,” he settles on after a brief, confused struggle to find the right words. “And I did have fun tonight. I’d like to do it again, if you want.”

“Yeah?” Duncan asks, brightening. He flashes Sam a smile that lights up the car. A smile with no daggers or shadows to it. Simple. Normal. God, it’s enticing. “How about I take you out for ice cream after school tomorrow?”

After school is when Dad runs them through PT, but Sam doesn’t even hesitate before answering, “Sounds great.” Then, before he can chicken out ( _Dad is going to be pissed if he skips out, and Dean won’t talk to him for a week_ ), he gets his hand on the door handle and pops it open.

Outside, the night is still summer warm. Crickets are chirping from nearby, and from an open window several houses down, Sam can hear Lettermen’s jovial voice. When he glances at the porch, the shadow has disappeared.

A knot low in his stomach loosens. Maybe he’s actually going to luck out on this one. Maybe there wasn’t even anyone there at all. He could have imagined the shadow and the flash of leather. It could have been nerves.

And pigs might fly, he tells himself sourly. Just because he couldn’t see them right now, didn’t mean his family wasn’t there.

At the sound of a car door closing, Sam jerks his head around. With wide eyes, he watches Duncan come around the front of the car toward him.

“What are you doing?” he demands. His voice comes out a little on edge, and Duncan gives him a confused look.

“Walking you to the door?”

“I, uh,” Sam fumbles, trying to find a graceful way out. “I’m fine. Really. Look, you can totally see it from here.”

Duncan smiles again. “I’m trying to be a gentleman here, Sam. Do me a favor and let me recover some of the points I lost in the car.”

Oh fuck, if Sam’s watcher is still up on the porch listening, Sam’s going to get debriefed on that one later for sure. And he’ll spill eventually. Either because Dad will make him mad enough to want to drop that kind of bombshell, or because Dean will wheedle and prod and drive him into a corner he can’t extract himself from.

Funny how much Dean sucks at interviewing witnesses when he’s such an expert at interrogating Sam.

Sam can’t come up with any good protests to get Duncan back in the car without revealing himself to be a complete and utter weirdo, so he lets Duncan take his arm and pull him up the steps onto the porch. He’s actually reaching for the screen door handle when a throat clears to his left.

Yeah, Sam knew this was going to happen.

He feels more resigned than anything else as he looks over along with Duncan in time to see a match flare in the darkness. Dean holds the flame by his mouth long enough for Sam to get a good look at him—jaw set in a firm, pissed off line that tells Sam he’s in for it—and then shakes it out. The scent of cloves suddenly fills the porch: a scent Sam usually associates with Dean drinking enough to be loose and relaxed.

Sam really, really hopes Dean hasn’t been drinking tonight.

The silence draws out uncomfortably until Duncan clears his throat and steps forward, moving toward Dean like a sheep too dumb to recognize the wolf.

“Hi,” he says, sticking out his hand. “I’m Duncan. Sam’s friend.”

There’s a beat of silence when Dean declines to accept the offer to shake, and then the glowing end of Dean’s clove dips and he says, “Yeah, you two looked real friendly in the car.”

Duncan’s shoulders stiffen. Sam would tell him that Dean doesn’t mean it—he’s just being a dick because he can—but Duncan is already saying, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but what Sam and I do isn’t any of your business.”

“He’s my kid brother,” Dean retorts. “I’d say that makes him tongue fucking another dude definitely my business.”

Oh man, Sam’s going to throw up in his mouth. He didn’t mind Dean watching him in theory—okay, he did; it pissed him off—but there’s a difference between suspecting and knowing that he’s going to have his technique critiqued for the foreseeable future. Knowing Dean, he might even pick up a guy and bring him home to show Sam how it’s really done.

The smug, competitive jerk.

“You might want to try a little tolerance,” Duncan is saying with a sharp edge in his voice. “Try actually reading that Book you people like justifying your homophobia with for a change and you’ll see that it’s actually recommended by the man upstairs.”

Dean’s laugh is edged and Sam resists the urge to smack his own forehead. Throwing religion at Dean in any form is never a good idea.

“Oh, buddy,” Dean drawls. “You are so barking up the wrong tree.” He moves in the shadows, stretching his legs out and then swinging them up on the splintering railing in a deceptively lazy posture. “It ain’t the fact that you’re a dude that I’ve got a problem with.”

“Yeah?” Duncan replies. Sam would be impressed by his bravado if not for the fact that Duncan can’t actually make out much more of Dean than the glowing end of his clove cigarette. Also, it’s clear that Dean is just screwing around with him at this point.

Sam finally regains his tongue and says, “Fuck off, Dean.” He reaches for Duncan’s arm, meaning to haul him back down the steps—or maybe even into the house; anywhere seems like an improvement right now as long as it’s somewhere Dean isn’t—and Duncan shakes him off.

“No, Sam, it’s okay,” he says. “I’ve dealt with bullies before. I’m not going to let some narrow-minded jackass scare me off. Even if he is your brother.”

A tiny, insulted corner of Sam’s brain heats with righteous anger on Dean’s behalf. Asshole though he can be, Dean’s also an honest-to-God hero, and he’s Sam’s brother. No one but Sam gets to talk shit about him like that.

Sam shuts his mouth in a tight line and stands back, watching. He still intends to step in if Dean looks like he’s going to take things too far, but he’s willing to let Duncan get put in his place. Just a little.

“What I do have a problem with,” Dean continues as though no one else has spoken, “Is stuck-up math geeks who think they can get into my little brother’s pants and then ditch him like a ten dollar whore.”

Sam flinches because that stings. Not just that Dean thinks Sam wouldn’t know better, but that he’s actually willing to use that kind of language. Jesus, it was just kissing. What the hell does Dean think about Sam anyway?

“I happen to genuinely like and appreciate Sam. And if you weren’t his brother, I’d ask you to take this into the yard. Hell, I’m thinking about asking you anyway.”

“Oh, I’m game if you are,” Dean says, and then the clouds shift away from the moon and he’s suddenly bathed in moonlight.

It isn’t the brightest illumination, but this close to full, the moon is bright enough to reveal the bulk that Dean has finally started putting on. Dean’s jacket is off and hanging on the back of the chair he’s sitting in, and the t-shirt he’s wearing does absolutely nothing to hide the results of years of Dad’s PT. Dean’s knuckles are still scabbed and bruised from hunting a kelpie last week, and a long cut over his cheekbone is held together by two butterfly Band-Aids and a collection of sutures.

There’s a shotgun draped over his lap.

If Sam weren’t so pissed by the gun’s presence, he’d be accusing his brother of manipulating the weather to suit this little alpha male show he’s putting on. Dean couldn’t have gotten better timing on that cloud shift if he’d planned it.

Duncan is a silent line of tension between them, and Sam knows that he isn’t having ice cream tomorrow. There won’t be any more study sessions at Duncan’s house either.

He’s going to kill Dean.

Dean smiles up at Duncan, cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth, and then leans forward a little and brings out a Glock from the small of his back. The Glock goes on the dirty glass table to Dean’s right, where he can splay his fingers over it meaningfully.

“See, around here,” Dean says, “we take family pretty seriously. And I’ve gotta say, I don’t really like the idea of a sleezeball like you trying to get into my brother’s pants. Don’t get me wrong, you weren’t going to get anywhere—Sam knows an asshole when he sees him—but it’s the principle of the thing, really.” Dean shrugs eloquently without lifting his hand from the gun. “No one fucks with Sam. Not on my watch.”

If he weren’t ripping apart Sam’s first actual chance at having a decent boyfriend, Sam might have been flattered. As it is, his hand tightens into a fist and he reaches for Duncan again, meaning to drag him away before Dean manages to make him a complete social pariah. Dean stops him with a glance that promises things can be so much worse than they are right now, and Sam leans on the screen door. He really wishes he’d learned the trick of melting into invisibility right now. Or teleportation, that’d be good too.

Just as long as he doesn’t have to be here.

“Could be I’ve got it wrong, though,” Dean says now that Sam has been temporarily quelled. “Could be you’re just an ordinary guy looking for that perfect someone. Either way, I wanted you to know up front how things are going to be.”

“I’ll call the cops,” Duncan says. “They’ll arrest you.”

Sam thought he couldn’t be angrier at Dean than he was already, but he manages it now. Or maybe it’s himself he’s angry with, for thinking he could find anything more than some physical satisfaction from someone like Duncan, who resorts to lame threats in the face of the mere prospect of violence. Dean’s eyes find Sam past Duncan’s shoulder, and his brows lift briefly—see? see what sort of loser you picked to fuck around with?—and Sam colors and looks away.

“Arrest me for what?” Dean says innocently. “We’re just out here having a reasonable conversation while I clean my guns. No law against that, buddy. In fact, I’d say that any responsible gun owner is pretty much obliged to clean out his babies every week or so. Otherwise, they could develop trick triggers. Might go off accidentally.”

Duncan has finally had enough. He doesn’t so much run for the steps as he throws himself down them. He almost falls in the dirt at the bottom, catches himself, and sprints for the car.

Sam watches Duncan get behind the wheel and pull away in a cloud of dust. There’s a sullen, resentful burn in his mouth and angry tension in his gut. He just isn’t sure who he’s more angry with right now: Dean, for being such an utter jerk, or himself, for indulging in what was clearly a fairy tale.

The porch creaks as Dean moves over to him, and a moment later Dean’s hand lands on the back of his neck.

“He hurt you?” Dean checks.

It’s an absurd, confusing question until Sam remembers that Dean must have overheard Duncan’s half apology. He remembers the weight of Duncan’s hand on his thigh, and how he might have let Duncan go a little further if they weren’t in his front yard, and his stomach twists with embarrassment. Pushing Dean’s hand away, he steps to the side and puts more space between them.

“You didn’t have to do that!” he accuses. “I just—I was having a good time.”

“Good times are great,” Dean says. He sounds almost… regretful, which is really fucking with Sam’s head right now. “But you gotta be careful, Sammy, that that’s all you’re looking for. Because with someone like him—with a civilian—that’s all you can have. You get that, right?”

That can’t be true, though. Sam doesn’t have to be a closed off, vengeful monk like Dad. He doesn’t have to be a serial, ice-hearted player like Dean. He can have normal. He can.

He just needs to find the right guy.

“You know what, Dean?” he says bitterly, swiping at the embarrassing tears forming in his eyes. “Fuck you.”

Dean doesn’t follow Sam when he storms inside, and when Sam glances out the window half an hour later—once he’s calmed down, once the ache inside has lessened to something manageable—Dean is still sitting on the porch. He’s still standing watch.

Sam wishes he didn’t know enough about what’s out there in the night to find that comforting.


End file.
